


Lucidity

by Luthor



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Outlaw Queen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-13
Updated: 2014-03-13
Packaged: 2018-01-15 14:32:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1308316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthor/pseuds/Luthor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Outlaw Queen: Regina is attacked and bitten by a flying monkey, ravaging her with a fever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lucidity

**Author's Note:**

> This was mostly written at 3am while I couldn’t sleep, so be prepared for this to make little to no sense. I haven’t actually seen an episode of Once since sometime in Season Two, so again, be prepared for this to make absolutely no sense. 
> 
> It's my first time writing for this pairing, be gentle. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I don’t own Once nor the characters used. I got the idea of Regina being unable to use magic from ‘her ocean eyes’’ fic: wouldn’t change a thing. (Which is a lovely little read.)

It was easy, she now thinks, to live in Storybrooke all those years without her magic. Even when she begged for it - railed for it - it was always just out of her reach. It's this that she hates: having her magic and being unable to use it, and for such a simple thing as numbing herself, _healing_ herself.  
  
There's another monkey attack, and Regina is targeted. Her shoulder is dislocated and there's a strange, numbing throb coming from her thigh just above her knee, but her main concern right now is being face-down in the dirt with their little 'camp' seeing.  
  
Snow is the first to arrive, having been the one to shoot two of the three flying monkeys out of the air. She barely has time to put her bow away, and drops it uselessly on the ground as she falls to Regina's side. In the distance, Robin, David, and Ruby investigate the remains of the fallen monkey trio.  
  
"I'm fine," Regina barks as soon as Snow reaches for her, and Snow's hand obediently returns.   
  
"Are you hurt?" Snow asks, instead, as Regina grunts and rolls herself over onto her uninjured shoulder. "Where?"  
  
"My shoulder," Regina snaps, if just to make her shut up. "It's dislocated."  
  
By this point, she's earned herself an audience. Not quite the rest of their camp, but Ruby and Robin and David, having decided their monkeys were dead. Ruby looks concerned but holds her place, while David seems to loom over Snow, bobbing into Regina's sight and making her feel nauseous.   
  
"You need to pop my shoulder back in," she says, her voice rough and strained, and then, harder, when Snow's face revolts, "I would do it myself, but I seem to have only one good arm. Help me sit."  
  
David helps, also, but it's Snow who ghosts her hands over Regina's injured shoulder. Robin's gaze falls to the rip in her leather trousers, and his brow wrinkles with concern.  
  
“You should push it," Regina is saying, holding her arm out now for Snow to take hold of her palm and forearm. Her voice is strained, but the only indication of the magnitude of the pain that she's feeling is in the way that her arm shakes in Snow's hold. "Hard. Do you understand? Push it hard."  
  
"Okay," Snow nods, and then sickens Regina with her, "On three...two..."  
  
She pushes, forcing the ball back into the socket, and Regina bites back a scream. A whimper leaves her sternly pressed lips afterwards, and her eyes close, breathing laboured.  
  
"Did I... has it worked?"  
  
A moment later, Regina grits out a, "Yes."   
  
She's shaky and cold, but she feels well enough to pick herself out of the dirt. Regina doesn't ask for the help, but both David and Snow are there at her arms, ready to help her to her feet, when Robin says, "Hold her."  
  
They stop, and four faces turn to his, inquisitive.  
  
"She's been bitten."  
  
Regina feels the dread fill her stomach as she follows his gaze, to where the black of her trousers is torn, showing dark, dark, silky skin. She's bleeding. Suddenly, the throbbing both makes sense, and intensifies.   
  
The four of them pore over her like she's some kind of rare bird - a once thought extinct piece of scripture - and she wills herself not to feel the horror of it all. It is Ruby's question that has her reserve wavering.  
  
"What's going to happen to her?"  
  
She's looking between the other three like Regina doesn't exist, like the bite has already developed into a fever, into a death. She feels herself separated from them, again. They are not of the same world.   
  
Ruby's eyes are fearful, promising. She turns to Regina, and Regina shudders, imagining a similar curse to the werewolf.  
  
“We won’t know until it happens,” Snow says, looking to Robin for further clarification, but it is clear to see that he has no experience with this. "We should treat it like a normal wound for now. It may be infected."  
  
"Have we much medicine on us?" David asks.  
  
"We weren't planning for this," Ruby tells him, both a warning and an apology. This isn't going to get better soon.   
  
Robin dismisses the idea of being so unprepared. "We are surrounded by trees and plants. My men and I have learned to spot those that have medicinal uses." He addresses Regina, now, who is biting back a groan from the pain she feels. "I cannot promise anything quickly, but we will do our best."  
  
Despite the pain, she sneers at his response. "It is but a scratch, I'll be fine." And though she pronounces the words with such emphasis, she cannot stop the spring of doubt that opens within her mind, trickling a cool kind of fear across her thoughts.  
  
No one disagrees with her - verbally.  
  
"Then let's get you to your feet," Robin says, nodding grimly, "Your Majesty."  
  
After all of her protesting, a fever does come.  
  
She is no longer sure where they are staying. She's inside a tent that is consistently dimly lit, whether by daylight or candles; she cannot make sense of time, or how long she has been here.  
  
She vomits ferociously for the first few days, and then falls into the pattern of sleeping for the majority of her hours. Nightmares come, frequently. She screams for Henry, her father, and, strangely enough (though she will never remember it), for her mother, too. Snow and Ruby come intermittently, and then David, Robin, even Eugenia Lucas' face occasionally interrupts her dreams as she wipes her forehead with a damp cloth.   
  
She eats nothing, but is forced to sip on water that trickles down the corners of her mouth, so reluctant to be swallowed, and then going with a struggle - trying to choke her as it does. She coughs and trembles, shivers and sweats.   
  
Constantly, she sees Henry, either inside her tent and just out of reach, or leaving her, as he'd left her that day, his face peering through at her from the rear window of a bobbing yellow car. The dreams become more lucid. Sometimes, she stops him before he can leave her bedside, and then he disappears, replaced by Snow or Ruby or Robin. And she doesn't wish to grasp for any of them. She drops her hold and groans.   
  
The fever breaks, and then she is just sick and drained and hungry. She keeps very little food down, and when she can drink, again, she cries.  
  
She cries privately, but there is often another there to clean the tears away from her face once she is done. She is surprised to learn that she often wishes it is the thief. Robin does not know where the tears come from, or why; he cannot understand _Henry_ or _Storybrooke_ or the reasons why Snow White is so reluctant to leave her behind.

  
Days pass, and she finds herself with the luxury of being able to sit up in bed.  
  
Her left thigh has been freshly wrapped above the knee. She'd forgotten about the bite somewhere between the fever and the tears, and now looks at it strangely, like one might look upon a freckle that has appeared overnight on the back of one's hand.   
  
She takes a blanket to her chest as she sits, and takes stock of the tent. It is large enough for a small landing strip between her bed and the makeshift table that has been set up opposite it, holding bandages and bottles of medicines, and, she is surprised to see, a small bouquet of mismatched flowers.   
  
The tent is empty but for herself, and so that is what she focuses on: the bony fingers, the ribs that she can feel a lot sharper beneath her slip, the hair that is matted and reeking and plastered, in places, to her forehead. Her mouth is cotton, her voice weak.  
  
She is wearing only the slip, having sweated herself out of the elaborate gown. It was never made for hiking, or dying in. The slip feels dirty and damp beneath her armpits, the base of her neck, and all down her back. She catches the faint stench of herself sometimes, but is already accustomed to its repulsive odour.  
  
The tent ripples around her, and she catches the faint echo of a wind that she desperately wishes to step into. From the light seeping in through the cracks of the tent's entrance, she figures it is daylight, and wonders how many dawns she has missed.   
  
She is reaching for the water bottle by her bedside when Robin enters. He hesitates when he sees that she is awake, and then steps forward quickly to take the oval-faced water bottle into his hands, unscrewing the cap. He goes to line the bottle up to her lips, when Regina's own bony hand intercepts. "I don't think that will be necessary." Her voice sounds aged, and they both wince at it before Robin nods, allowing her to drink unaided. She is the Queen, still, he thinks.   
  
Regina is adamant that she can drink by herself, though her hand shakes and aches as she lifts it, and beads of water escape the corners of her mouth. She wipes them, shameless, and stares Robin in the face as he takes the now empty bottle back to screw on the top.  
  
"I'm ravenous."   
  
She'd almost said, 'I'm starving,' but it's far too close to the truth for her to feel marginally comfortable with.   
  
Robin tries a smile, and is somewhat successful. "I'll bring something to you."  
  
"And I wish to bathe."  
  
Robin nods. "There is a river not far from camp..."  
  
She'd never have stooped to that before, but the numbing waters of a river would feel perfect against her clammy skin. She finds herself longing for that almost as much as she is for food.  
  
Robin returns later, carrying a wooden bowl and spoon, as promised. The contents are faintly steaming, and bring a fresh smell into her tent - something that isn't disease. She sits up straighter in anticipation, but loses her table manners the second the bowl is placed into her lap. She eats the soup as quickly as she can manage - which isn't quick enough, considering she strictly refuses to spill a drop.  
  
"Eat slower, you will make yourself sick." Despite this, Robin produces two halves of a roll of bread from a pocket within his cape. He'd been testing her appetite.   
  
"How long have I been here?" Regina asks, and takes one of the offered pieces. She cares very little for where it's just been produced from.  
  
"A week almost," Robin tells her, and bites into the second half of bread. He swallows quickly - it barely touches the sides. "And they all are very frustrated that we have stopped here for so long. I thought that might amuse you."  
  
Regina fills her mouth with soup-soaked bread. She does not spare him a look. "You thought wrong."   
  
Robin finishes his bread first, and Regina not shortly after. The portion of soup was child's sized, but it sits heavily in her stomach, which squelches and squeezes around it, as though unsure as to what to do. She feels better for eating - warmer. Weighed down.  
  
"A week." She can barely believe it, or keep the derision from her voice. "I must bathe."  
  
"Of course."  
  
Though neither of them makes a move.   
  
They probably hate her all the more, now, Regina thinks; had probably wished she’d die in this tent. With that, at least, she feels a surge of motivation to live.   
  
"It is admirable," Robin says when they've been quiet for too long, looking away, "the way you handle pain." He meets her gaze, then, and she finds that he is true to his words. "The shoulder dislocation, I mean, and the way you resist your magic."  
  
"I cannot use it without alerting the Witch of our location," Regina says, as though bored.  
  
"And what stopped you from doing that? You could have gotten yourself away, unharmed, no?"  
  
"That's correct." She is loath to admit it, and it only confuses him further.   
  
"Then why didn't you?"  
  
Regina looks away, her hands clamping tightly around the bowl in her lap. "You have your uses," she mutters. Her current position speaks for itself.  
  
Robin looks dubious, and has every right to, but Regina is not ready to admit that she might actually care for these people that have reluctantly united themselves with her. They are Henry's friend's, Henry's grandparents, and are therefore of precious value.

And then she thinks of the other faces - those unknown men and women who have stepped in to help them. The fair-faced boy who clings to his father's leg around strangers, like Henry had with her.   
  
Robin is still watching her. She wants to tell him that she would never allow anything to happen to them, if she can help it. Instead, she says, "I would like to wash now. Take me to this river you speak of."

 

The river turns out to be a wide, steady flowing body of water that Regina hadn’t expected this far into the forest. She realises how close to its edge they are, but the bank of the river on both sides dissolves back into trees. The forest feels infinite.

Robin does not quite carry her, but keeps an arm about her as she walks. She is vaguely aware of Snow following, carrying warm clothes and soap. She has become Regina’s own personal nurse, it seems, and though Regina rolls her eyes and scowls at the obligatory duty her once step-daughter must feel, she has little energy left to complain.

“I’ll be fine here,” she tells Robin once they reach the river’s bank.

It’s not quite a steep slope down into the water, but she wishes to brave it alone. His arm leaves her back, and she stumbles on for a few, unsteady steps before Snow is there, again, and it seems that Regina will never get a moment of peace.

“I know,” Snow says, before Regina even has a chance to tell her that she is perfectly capable of bathing herself. “The water is cold, and your body is… you’ve been very sick.”

“And what good can you do for me in here?” But she winces when her feet first hit the water. She thinks it’s an acceptable temperature, at first, but then the numbing cold turns to a burning cold, and her ravaged muscles tense against the impact as Snow, fully clothed, walks her further in.

“Moral support,” she offers, shivering against Regina until the water is at waist-height. “You can tell me to go all you like, but I’m not. So you might as well take advantage of my help.”

They walk slowly in the water, and then they stop. Regina’s shivers turn violent, but she represses the chattering of her teeth as best she can.

“This will never help you recover,” Snow chastises. Regina’s response is nothing but a glare.

In the water, Snow helps work the slip off, and washes Regina’s body while it curls in on itself, trembling. Once she is done, she cleans her hair and face, and pulls the slip back on over her head. It will not help her once they get out of the water, but Robin is still waiting somewhere along the bank, and she believes that Regina deserves a modicum of self-respect after they have all taken turns in cleaning the sweat from her brow for a week.

She dresses in thick, course material that hangs off her body like it’s nothing but a hanger – a frame. It keeps the cold at bay, mostly, and she cannot feel the boots rub against her numb feet.

Regina walks. She can do that without aid, but Snow is there, still, and the camp pays curious attention as the trio waddle towards an empty fire. Ruby moves away from it, having finished fanning the flames, and says something about dinner and bread that has Regina hungry all over again.

In the water, she’d seen her wasted face, paler than it’s ever been. She holds it down, now, not out of shame, but exhaustion.

“I’ll bring a blanket,” Snow says, and promptly leaves.

When it is just the two of them, a timid, doe-eyed boy slips into his father’s lap. Roland is not sure what to make of the wet-haired woman who shakes in front of the fire, but his father has spent a lot of time in caring for her, and that seems to be enough for her to gain his trust. Still, he cups a hand over his father’s ear and speaks in whispers when she is near.

“Yes,” Robin says, his ear tickled. “She is recovering well.”

They eat again, together, Regina with a thick but tattered blanket around her shoulders. She’s had time to look at the dress properly, and disgusts herself when she does not openly complain. It’s a dirty red and reaches the floor. Beneath it, her underclothes keep the coarse material from irritating her skin.

“We’ll wait here until the week is out, and then start moving again,” Robin tells her as she walks back to her tent. They stop at the entrance, seeing that it has been aired out and no longer stinks of illness; the flowers, too, have been replaced, though offer very little in terms of perfume. “It will give you time to regain your strength.”

“I never lost it,” Regina dismisses easily, and Robin follows her inside when she steps into the tent. “I’m ready to set off again.”

Robin looks dubious, gaze flitting between each sunken brown eye. “You’ll make yourself worse if you do not look after yourself properly.”

Regina steps into him, her muscles having learned the method of intimidation by heart. They fall into it like a reflex. “I know my own strength,” she says. “If I want to walk tomorrow, I will.”

Her hair has dried in a braid, and her teeth have been cleaned, before and after dinner. She misses the convenience of an electric toothbrush, and has been picking bits of bark from between her teeth when she believes no one is looking her way.

Robin inhales her with a deep sigh, then lets her out again. “Then I cannot stop you.”

“No,” Regina agrees, “you cannot.”

His mouth flickers, amused, and Regina finds that she follows the curve of it until it disappears again, melting into his expression.

“I do not care for how you look at women, thief. We carry a lot more than many men on our backs, and perform the same tasks with often better results, though receive much less praise for it. If there is a weaker sex, it is the one that desperately drags the other down in fear of what power they might wield, should they rise.”

The smile returns, accompanied with a small shake of the head.

“I think you confuse my—”

“I don’t think I do.”

Robin tries again, “You have been poisoned and bed-ridden for a week. Is that not cause for recovery? Must you always push yourself, even when it is not in your best interests?”

“You have no idea what is in my interest.”

A flicker of something crosses his eyes, and she doesn’t like the way he looks at her. It’s pitying and vaguely understanding; she practically sees Henry’s name form on his lips. Someone must have told him, she figures, and feels her blood boil.

“You’ve suffered a great deal.”

“I’ve suffered worse.”

And Robin believes her. There’s a trace of those hardships in everything she does – more so the way she picks herself back up again, and forces herself on. He doubts anything would stop her; no poison or illness or natural disaster would get in this woman’s way. It sends a thrill of admiration down his spine, and he dips his head, almost respectful.

“We will rise at dawn. I shall alert the others.”

“Wake me for breakfast,” she orders his retreating back. “And I want to see a map of this forest, and your plans for the route we are to take.”

Ah, yes, Robin thinks to himself as he exits her tent, making for the hip-height boy who is already sleeping in his tent.

_She is the Queen, still_.

 

 


End file.
